May, 2010

One of our favourite architect firms is Clasesson Koivisto Rune, they are also one of our favourite furniture designers as well and we have a few of their pieces here at mjölk. I wanted to do a post about their Råman house, which was built in 2000. It’s still just as beautiful and classic as it ever was, and also features one of the nicest bedrooms we’ve ever seen.

Today we got up early to have some breakfast before opening the store. We were headed to Grapefruit Moon but because of the crazy Gardiner closure (for the whole summer, no less!) the traffic going cross town was horrendous. Regardless, it was a beautiful day and we wanted to be outside so we went to one of our favorite localish haunts “Mitzi’s” on Sorauren (the College St. location is equally great).

This brunch is by far the best bang for your buck in Toronto! We always get the “Mitzi’s breakfast”: the best ever sour dough toast, two eggs, bacon, greens (we substitute the potatoes for greens), and a good amount of fruit, X 2 and two cups of coffee costs around 20 bucks.

Well I hope everyone had a great long weekend! The weather here in Toronto was ridiculously beautiful and the city emptied out into the North for May 24.

We had a long overdue charcuterie dinner with Celine and Jin on Saturday night. You’re probably familiar with Celine’s wonderful blog: Bonjour Celine. Juli and I had a date with The Cheese Boutique (Aka paradise) to pick up some cheese, meats, and olives. Everyone there is so helpful and you get to taste so many samples!

Celine and Jin brought 4 dozen oysters from Oyster Boy to start the meal off. Jin learned how to shuck oyesters in P.E.I so he taught me the trick and soon the pupil became the master and I managed to shuck most of the bunch while Jin gave them a scrub. It took a while to shuck all 48 oysters but only a few minutes to eat them all!

On Sunday, our friends Jen and Taylor invited us over on Sunday for a Lost season finale party.

Did anyone else watch?

Jen is a thoughtful entertainer, catering to all of our special dietary needs via 3 different types of nachos, vegan pigs in a blanket, veggies and hummus. Thanks J & T!

An exciting addition to the mjölk shop were these four beautiful white risers designed by Peter from Studio Junction and created by master wood worked Clayton. It also features most of the new Japanese products we found on our trip!

Peter and I were channeling Tadao Ando when positioning the risers together.

The risers use a balance of positive and negative space to anchor them in our showroom. We also love the angled detail of the edges which feel great to the touch. The items on the riser are from our first shipment of a line of paper products by Naoto Fukasawa for Onao (the box it all came in declared “japanese paper is mystery”). They are all made from a water proof and tear resistant paper that actually gets softer with use.

We also got new wooden tags created for all the products in the store. They’re so unique and really compliment the designs we carry.

Some notable peieces that need to be mentioned are the beautiful and poetic f,lo,w,e,r,s ruler, with hand picked and dried flowers placed in increments of 1 cm and cast in acrylic resin. There are also handmade Japanese works by Mitsuru Maeda including wooden spoons, coffee measures, and lipped bowls. I still need to add them to the website!

Monday we drove up to the cottage. It was insanely hot out and we forgot to bring our bathing suits (and shorts)! We’ll take our cat Isha up with us next time. We don’t like leaving her at home alone and upon our return she was pretty ticked off with us. I am so tempted to get a leash for her so she can come out on the deck, but is that a slippery slope? I can’t have her begging at home to go out. Sigh poor indoor cat Isha.

We also picked up the PS Svarva floor lamp by Front. We’re both big fans of Front and probably wouldn’t find many opportunities to own one of their pieces, so we ventured off to Ikea to grab it before it’s too late (Juli was totally busted by a mjölk customer…blush). It’s a stunning, edgy design that works well with the Marcel Wanders dining table at the cottage.

We have decided that for the summer, the mjölk shop will be CLOSED SUNDAYS & MONDAYS. Please check the website for up to the minute hours of operation.

Monday we visited the Niagara region and stopped in at my parent’s home. I came across our old coffee maker in the basement pantry while hunting for homemade preservatives.

It’s a timeless design. Something that isn’t designed to look dated after a year, or come in a trendy colour that you get sick of and decide to toss out in replace of a new shiny one. This coffe maker has been working for at least 15+ years, sometimes a little investment goes a long way. Braun took a chance on the idea that people would pay a little more money for something that is well designed, an idea that isn’t as apparent in their recent designs.

Why did they discontinue it?!

We still haven’t decided whether to take it to the cottage or keep it here. We are pretty confident that when my parents opt for a modern prefab up North to retire in we will give them back their coffee maker.

An exciting eBay find was a set of old Vola wallmounted bathroom accessories by Arne Jacobsen. We actually sell all of the vola accessories but they aren’t available in this beautiful red finish!

Another exciting find is an original set of barbecue tools Harri Koskinen designed for Hackman WAY BACK in 2000. They are dead stock and unused.

Harri Koskinen is one of our favorite contemporary designers. We have many of his designs in our store and even have a set of chairs he designed for Artek around our dining table.

the only issue I have with them are they’re too beautiful to use! It’s kind of funny really, this is the first year we are going without a barbecue and I went and bought a set of barbecue tools… I guess they’re going up to the cottage.